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Ellyse Perry guides Southern Stars to win over South Africa at World Twenty20

Wed 26 Mar 2014, 7:17 AM AEDT

Ellyse Perry spearheaded a thrilling six-wicket victory over South Africa in Sylhet to keep Australia's women's World Twenty20 title defence alive.

All-rounder Perry came to the rescue for the Southern Stars, smashing an unbeaten 41 off 29 balls as the two-time defending champions chased 116 to save their tournament, sneaking home with eight balls remaining.

Perry and Jess Cameron (27 off 24) smashed an unbeaten 60-run partnership to steer the Southern Stars to victory, which was sealed with Perry's sixth four of the match, after coming together with the situation looking dire.

Having lost their opening match to New Zealand, all of the Southern Stars' remaining group fixtures effectively became 'must win' and that looked far-fetched when they slumped to be 2 for 12 and then 3 for 34.

But the nature of the comeback victory, in addition to the stellar bowling efforts of Julie Hunter (2 for 13), Erin Osborne (2 for 20) and Rene Farrell (2 for 19) who combined to restrict South Africa to 9 for 115, encouraged Perry enough to suggest their tournament was up and running.

"That was really important," Perry said.

"I think in tournaments like this where there's not much time between matches and it's really cut throat, momentum is really important.

"It's good to get a win and I think kick start our tournament."

The batting recovery mission was started by Delissa Kimmince (17) and Alex Blackwell (24), before Perry and Cameron stepped in to finish the job.

Perry says run-scoring actually became easier as the overs passed, explaining the new ball was the most effective period for wicket taking.

"One thing that we've seen happen quite a lot in this tournament so far is really slow starts from all the sides," she said.

"But conditions are really good to play in and there's a lot of opportunity to make those runs up towards the end. Fortunately tonight Jess and I were able to do that."

The Southern Stars will now face Ireland on Thursday, where a win would well and truly put their title defence back on track.

But Perry insists that has not been raised in team meetings.

"We haven't really discussed defending the title," she said.

"When you come to a World Cup it's a really different situation to the last one.

"So, while we had huge success at the last one, we don't see it as ours to defend, rather that it is ours to try and win again."